Population decline is the elephant in the world’s living room. As a matter of arithmetic, we know that the social life of most developed countries will break down within two generations. If present fertility rates hold, the number of Germans will fall by 98 percent over the next two centuries. No pension and health care system can support such an inverted population pyramid.

Nor is the problem limited to the industrial nations. Fertility is falling at even faster rates — indeed, at rates never before registered anywhere — in the Muslim world. For the first time in history, the birth rate of the whole developed world is well below replacement, and a significant part of it has passed the demographic point of no return. But Islamic society is even more fragile. By the middle of this century, the belt of Muslim countries from Morocco to Iran will become as gray as depopulating Europe. The Islamic world will have the same proportion of dependent elderly as the industrial countries. A time bomb that cannot be defused is ticking in the Muslim world. Imminent population collapse makes radical Islam more dangerous as nations confronting their own mortality may chose to go down in a blaze of glory.

In the past, nations that foresaw their own demise fell to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: War, Plague, Famine, and Death. In today’s more civilized world there is a Fifth Horseman: Loss of Faith. When faith goes, fertility vanishes, too. We need to study theopolitics — the powerful impact of religious beliefs and aspirations on world events. Even we exceptional Americans must come to grips with the collapse of faith and fertility, especially in the rapidly and dangerously declining Muslim nations, in order to prevail in a world in which tragic outcomes are more common than happy endings.

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1.
Shawn

What happened to all the talk about Europe being flooded with Moslem migrants because the Moslems have birth rates dramatically higher than the economic growth rates?

I mean the economic growth rates in Turkey or Egypt can’t be SO bad that birth rates below replacement is still double or tripple the GDP growth rate, can they?

Shawn: the main reason there is economic growth in places like Morocco and to a lesser degree Turkey is because they export their undereducated rural population to Europe where they get an education at European taxpayer cost, social security, unemployment and child benefits, a portion of which is wired home where it injects lots of money into the Moroccan and Turkish economy.
It at the same time removes a large section of the unproductive part of the population of these countries, increasing the GDP average per capita of the remaining population, again giving the illusion of economic growth.

Although I have ordered this book, I have not yet received it. Nevertheless, I have followed Mr. Goldman’s writing for years at Asia times, First Things and PJM.

His writing is indispensible for understanding the geo-politics of our times, especially how religious belief and demographics are “key terrain” which the more conventional instruments of state power (military, intelligence agencies, etc.) must understand and maneuver through, or else face frustration and defeat.

I have served in a variety of positions which many consider to be privy to “insider” knowledge (Special Agent of the FBI and since 2007 as an advisor to U.S. Army division, brigade and battalion commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan), but without “Spengler” I would have, on a good day, only a two-dimensional understanding of the real issues in contemporary geo-politics.

1)the radical demographic changes taking place in America (brought about by Ted Kennedy and his Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 — with European-Americans dropping below 50% by 2041)…and the consequences of this?

2)Islam’s triumphal return to Europe, and the Old Continent’s changing demographics (aging, shrinking and dying populations…and the growth of Islam in Europe)?

3)the coming civil war in the Islamic world — Sunni vs. Shia?

4)the Chinese encroachment/colonization into Siberia and the Russian Far East?

5)China by 2020 having 25-30 million more males than females between the ages of 18-25 (due to their “one child policy”)…and China going to war to solve this ‘problem’?

6)the Islamic (demographic and cultural + terrorism/jihad) threat to India (180 million Muslims in India + 180 million Muslims in Pakistan + 150 million Muslims in Bangladesh = 510 million Muslims living cheek by jowl 980 million Hindus in the Indian subcontinent).

That “Civil War” has never stopped. But the world of Islam is mainly tribal and these tribes have been at war with each other, irrespective of their membership in the larger religious groupings. Think of our own Religious Wars, where the Catholic French ended up being the mortal enemies of the Catholic Habsburgs. Most of the Muslim countries are actually collections of mutually antagonistic tribes. Long before Sunni fights Shia, they are going to have to settle Kurd vs. Turk, Pushtun vs Tajik, Palestinian vs Bedouin, Baluchi vs Punjabi, Persian vs Azerbaijani, etc. etc. etc. Look at the war in the Darfur region. Both Sunni Muslim.

The Shia will be destroyed when Iran fights a nuclear war with Israel. The Sunni will take the end of Iran as a divine omen proving the Shia wrong, and will then unite all Muslims under one Caliph. The mission of the new Caliphate will be conquest of the whole world. They will either succeed or die trying in WW III.

Palestinians are still having 10 children per woman as their military strategy to destroy Israel. Nothing has changed. Maybe fertility in Central Africa, Bangladesh and Indonesia has declined a bit, but who cares? Warmongers tend to be those that have an excess of young males, not legions of geezers. The Arabs are still reproducing faster than their food supply can expand. I expect the next Caliph to be an Arab – probably an Egyptian or a Saudi.

The biggest threat to the MENA (mainly the North Africa) is the immigration of South Sahara Africans (aka blacks) there. For ideological reasons the government there are unwilling to seriously stop it. Socialists and Islamists alike.
The West North Africa is mainly at replacement level, so any future economic growth will keep more people at home and more people leave for the Europe, more is the incentive for the others to stay.
This is true for Turkey and Iran.
Both KSA and Egypt have birth rates falling like bricks. They went from 7 children in the ’70 to 3 or less now. And if you know that the numbers of fertility are computed using the mean number of offspring of 15 to 50 years old, you can understand that these numbers are heavy biased by the children born 20 years ago. Given the great majority of babies are born from women younger than 30 (even in the West) I would be very interested in finding what is the birth rate of these women now in the MENA. I bet it would be very interesting.

Europe, in fact, is likely to be sub-Saharan African rather than North African Arab (Tunisia and Algeria already are well below replacement).

But the more important point is this:

We are not facing an orderly takeover of Europe (or anywhere else) by a new Islamic caliphate. Instead, we are looking at decades of chaos, in which some of the main Islamic powers–Turkey and Iran in particular–go into demographic decline, while others–mainly Egypt–go into economic breakdown.

That has a strategic implication: the United States and its allies must manage in a chaotic world which cannot be stabilized by any means available to us. But chaos is not necessarily our enemy. We are still the strongest power in the world, for all of our problems, and therefore most likely to benefit from chaos. In some cases, we should promote it; in other cases, reduce it; in yet other cases, stand back and do nothing at all.

This is a very different view than the “Bush Freedom Agenda.” Read the last chapter of the book, and Spengler’s final Universal Law: “The best thing you can do for zombie nations is, don’t be one of them.” If we adopt a tough policy of allying with our friends and accepting the ruin of our enemies, we will come out top of the crisis.

Actually, I would argue that it may differ in execution, but not so much in goal. The end result, had the BFA actually been fully acted upon post 2005, and followed through for the next 2-3 decades, would have been something quite similar to what you are proposing. The boosting and creating of states friendly to us, and the eventual collapse/implosion of those inimical to us.

Obviously all hypothetical, especially since the Bush Doctrine live a rather shortened life. But I don’t think the end result would have been radically different. JMHO.

Although, to be sure, your plan may very well be quite a bit cheaper in American dollars, equipment, and blood. Barring a truly catastrophic implosion on the part of one or more of the nastier state actors, that is.

The ‘Owie’s', (the ows mobs) will fail in their attempts to make utopian communities for two reasons. They have an incorrect view of human nature, and they have no Faith in anything greater than themselves and loud slogans.

Is the gross instability of this picture by any chance all due to Western decadence via Western prosperity? Rich white countries have for centuries brought the third world the Gospel (good) and improved health, sanitation etc. such that babies didn’t die at such pitiful rates (good) and birth rates soared (questionable). The first world, having the do-gooder instinct to “help” the third world thus far, didn’t of course have the resources, interest passion or theology to see to population control and political/economic sanity in it.

As rich countries became richer and ergo more mindlessly decadent themselves, they’ve gravitated to favoring, sponsoring and perpetrating insane tyranny and mindlessness on others. ameriKa’s foreign policy is clearly aimed at wiping out Israel’s neighbors so she can accelerate the business of taking over the geographical hub of the world’s land masses (thus the stripes on the Israeli flag), despite Israeli Jews’ having an undistinguished total fertility rate of 2.97 (Wikipedia).

With profound insight this article speaks of loss of faith, and there’s no finer way to experience that than to have ameriKa bring you Hooters, Sex In The City, McDonald’s, Michael Jackson, ecocide, “diversity” and “democracy” to replace whatever traditional and family-based social structure your society may have built up over the last few millennia. I’m sure Libya is as inspired by ameriKan bombing of its hospitals as the people of Bhopal, India were for Union Carbide’s 1984 pesticide disaster which killed 17,000 there. Progress!

Nelson Waller – You have no idea what you are talking about. America is doing the exact opposite of what you say it is doing. It is pressuring Israel to give up territory for a possible ephemeral peace. As for the stripes on the Israeli flag, those were meant to mimic the stripes on the talith (prayer shawl) worn during prayer, and the blue color is meant to represent the t’kheleth commanded to be included with the fringes (tzitzith) worn on the talith.

“In the past, nations that foresaw their own demise fell to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: War, Plague, Famine, and Death. In today’s more civilized world there is a Fifth Horseman: Loss of Faith.”

What nonsense. I question your statistics regarding Muslim births, ESPECIALLY in Europe. Currently, there is an explosion of Muslim births in Europe, mainly because the European welfare states will take care of these kids for their entire lives. If you read Mark Steyn’s book, “America Alone,” a book that deals with demographics in Europe, he claims just the opposite, and that the only people actually having kids in Europe are the Muslims. All of the ethnic Europeans, from the Italians to the Germans (and especially the Russians), have a rapidly declining population rate. So at least in developed countries, there will be no lack of Muslim children supporting a welfare state. The question is, what will they want in exchange for supporting such a state? Perhaps a state that is more Muslim than European? In the 16th century, the Muslims were at the gates of Vienna. Today, they’re already there and are taking over, without firing a shot.

Exactly as happened in Europe between 300 and 100 years ago, the people who want the freedom to practice their religion as they see fit – who are usually the best and brightest – are bugging out for better pastures. These people are usually religious conservatives and have the traditions of larger families. Our ancestors left Europe for here, the Muslims are leaving the Middle East for Europe.

I always enjoy reading your posts, Libertyship46, but I’ve got to point out that in a society with democratic elections, once the magic 50% tipping point is passed, the majority can simply vote not to fund all those promised social programs anymore. They won’t have to “exchange” anything – they’ll be driving. Same problem here in the US with 47% of the population not paying federal taxes – once you pass 50% where the “takers” can legislate payments from the “makers” your society is circling the bowl.

I agree with you on the most part. The problem with “running out of other people’s money”, is that we will be at risk for tyranny when the welfare check bounces. The ‘Freeloaders Spring’ will be a temporary phenomena.

Right. Europe is already lost. We are seeing just the beginning of this new wave of jihad which will last at least a hundred years or more. The author is grasping at make believe straws of hope. Islam will replace the social welfare system with its own Islamic system.

Good point, Libertyship.
Perhaps David Goldman or the staff at PJ Media would be so kind to comment on this most critical question… what are the actual demographic statistics of Muslim birth rates in Euorpe and elsewhere?
Thank you in advance.
Personally, I see Europe turning into Eurabia within two or three generations. Looks like the leftists are indeed aborting themselves into oblivion. And as this appears to be numerically irreversible… catastrophic would be an understatement.

In regards to questioning the statistics, I would venture to guess the lacking statistics are in the book, so not including them is maybe a way to get you to purchase the book.
To the point that Muslim population is exploding in Europe, that could easily be the number of teen and young adult muslims. The birth rates of the boomers themselves is what I believe he is referring to as declining.

I claim virtually no knowledge of demographics. I do claim to have read a Scientific American article on the subject some years ago. One of the conclusions of the article was that population predictions are always so far off why does anyone bother to make them. I also recall Lincoln, using using the rate of increase of US population predicted that the US population would be 270,000,000 by 1930. I believe it was actually half that. Likewise I noticed that as a society moves from an agricultural society to an urbanized one there is a leap in population numbers as 8 of 10 children no longer die in infancy. Furthermore once in an urban or healthier environment birthrate levels off as families no longer need to breed their farm labor. But it takes a generation for breeding habits to change, hence a dramatic rise in population among the first urbanized generations, then the the leveling off.

Now apparently we are in a fourth part of a cycle which never occurred before, where childbearing is considered more burdensome than desirable, an attitude historically the venue of the rich. There is also the problem of finding a mate as due to the revolution of rising expectations people actually want to love, or at least not dislike, the people they marry. This too is a rather modern notion and makes having a family more complicated.

My guess once the population starts dropping dramatically a society will act to biologically protect itself by having more children, remember we are all hard wired to pass our genes. Our ancestors survived lions on the African velt so my guess surviving a drop in social security benefits won’t be that difficult.

As for lack of faith adding to the lack of fertility, have confidence that people will find something to believe in so that they can justify having more children. The need to believe is apparently as hard wired as the need to breed. Note there has never been a society found by anthropologist without a religion. If Europe has lost one it should find another from some source. I just hope it is not as screwed up as the ones they have found in the 100 years.

Populations are exploding in the Third World; Nigeria has 160 million people which I regard as a prelude to a disaster and Egypt can’t take care of the people it has now and growth there is slowing but not stopping; add another million this year.

Europe and the US would benefit from a reduced population but can’t have it because of our insane legal and illegal immigration policies. America was doing just fine when it had 140 million during WWII.

Going back to 140 million doesn’t mean we’d end up with 5,000. The idea of economic growth through population growth is a bubble that cannot be sustained and we’d better figure out how to remain solvent and shrink. Otherwise, we’ll have the entire Third World living in America and for what – to what end?

I don’t believe one word about muslims disappearing. They have babies like crazy and Africa as a whole is a huge problem. They are emigrating like nuts.

I address this in the book, in fact. There is a lot of truth to the “Eurabia” story, but it is easy to oversimplify. Oversimplification leads to bad strategic thinking.
It’s varied.
The Turks in Germany come from a country where fertility ALREADY is at European levels, and they adjust to German fertility levels quickly.
The Senegalese in France have 8 children at home, but tend to converge on 3 children once they move to France — much more than the French birth rate but still much lower.
The Pakistanis in the UK maintain an extremely high fertility rate — which is why “Londonistan” is most at risk.
Pakistan has a 50% literacy rate and has lots of kids; Turkey and Iran have 90% literacy, and European fertility rates. It’s the sudden collapse of fertility in a number of countries that is strategically important. They are much more dangerous for the recognition that they are likely to collapse within one generation.

Mr. Goldman, I remember an article you wrote recently about Iran which was quite surprising to me in that it apparently has a shockingly low birthrate. I wonder if you would take the time to comment on Iran. I’ve personally known some very well-educated women who got out of there before the lights went out. It seems to me that the women in Iran today might be influenced by the poor political and economic future for their potential offspring, no matter what Islam has to say about being fruitful.

Things used to be much different for women in Iran, and unlike countries that have always been oppressed, they know about birth control. Maybe, given the poor prospects for their kids, they’ve just decided to cast a vote of “no confidence” by electing to have far fewer offspring.

I got the book on Kindle and liked it. It’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect.

I think the primary criticism I have is that it doesn’t deal with technological solutions to the problems of underpopulation. We may be cloning people or building robots, or even genetically modifying ourselves. The book concerns humans as they’ve been for thousands of years and on that basis I agree with it, but there’s a possibility that we’ll change.

I especially liked the discussion of the decline in the number of children in ancient Greece and Rome. That was chilling.

One interesting thing about this drop in the birthrate is how long societies have gotten away with it. I do quite a bit of genealogy and it’s really interesting to see that huge drop in family size over the past hundred years- but then it’s offset by people living twice as long as their forebears.

In other words, technology has helped a great deal already. But it has also helped obscure the decline- people haven’t noticed this decrease in birth rate because there are still a great many people around. It’s alarming to those of us who know about it, but the average person STILL thinks the world is vastly overpopulated.

So I think life extension technology is the kind that’s going to continue to be applied, though the “low-hanging fruit” of disease control has largely been accomplished- any gains now are going to be hard-won. There are fewer moral objections to it, too, and so we’ll see more of it in the future despite the fact that we’re perfectly capable of cloning human beings right now.

You’ve got an interesting site here, Mr. Goldman (I featured another page in my blog) but those figures are vastly different than what one hears from a hundred other sources. The bottom line remains that traditionally white countries now have millions upon millions more cultural and racial aliens in them than their founding populations want; it’s all because of pseudo-utopian schemes by dictatorial globalist politicians; and it’s ruining everything.

The newcomers don’t assimilate, they colonize and every grouping of them seems to feel entitled to take over. Even studies by so-called liberals find what every sentient creature knows with no help: the more the liberally-defined “diversity,” the more gobs and gobs of trouble that wouldn’t have otherwise existed. They find people feel more comfortable and trusting around others who speak their language and share their values, religion, etc…. duh! Even the crime statistics compiled by the government that’s stuffing ameriKa full of Somali Bantus, Russian (actually Jewish) mobsters and Moslems demonstrate it’s a recipe for national suicide.

Unquestionably this is a huge factor in the traditional white populations’ low birth rates. They have to pay crushing taxes to give the poor Colombian refugees homes but can’t afford one for themselves. Knowing that “your” country is on a long march to destroy everything your people hold sacred depresses everybody. Even “legal immigrants” are up in arms about ameriKa’s forced borderlessness! The sickening phoniness of PC that screams at you from all sides everyday worsens the misery index.

Say, Jack in Shekel Springs, haven’t you noticed a government can do two totally opposite things at once? Wouldn’t you agree it’s a good time to try to quit running the world and bribing both Israel and Egypt? That tallit stuff won’t wash — Judaism is primarily a political movement. Zionism is certainly a godless *political* golem from hell.

Moslems (I prefer the older less PC term) will take over Europe, then they’ll reach the level of prosperity that kills fertility, then they’ll repeat what whites are going through. The few whites left in Europe will be in cages. Then it will be India’s, China’s or darkest Africa’s turn to become Europe. It won’t be pretty — everything that draws people there will be destroyed, sure as the “melting pot” is burning everything to a crisp in the US.

This birth rate decline is simply a result of what you see out in the natural world. Over population will cause breeding rates to decline in all species due to lack of viable living space, lack of food and stress that has overwhelmed its balance of resources.
Why would humans be exempt from this natural balancing law? God created the balance so how are you going to fight it and why would you want to?
Idaho, best state in the Union!

— “This birth rate decline is simply a result of what you see out in the natural world. Over population will cause breeding rates to decline in all species due to lack of viable living space, lack of food and stress that has overwhelmed its balance of resources.”

Welcome to Simple Land, where people just deal with it.

— “Why would humans be exempt from this natural balancing law? God created the balance so how are you going to fight it and why would you want to?”

“Fertility is falling at even faster rates — indeed, at rates never before registered anywhere — in the Muslim world.”

Insha’Allah.

So how is the quality of life progressing in the Muslim lands? Lots of food, water, and jobs? Is everybody happy? No more need to scapegoat tiny Israel for ALL the disappointments of the Arab/Muslim world?

Hey — Mr. Lipp! Tell us exactly how you think the native populations of the near East should feel about ameriKa and the uK forcing the Zionist apartheid entity into their midst. Were they supposed to say “Oh — you owned this property two thousand years ago? Here, TAKE it!”

“Scapegoat tiny Israel for ALL the disappointments of the Arab/Muslim world”? When did you EVER hear them complain about anything but Jewish genocidal mania and Israeli supremacism? How would you like to have your house pushed over with you in it without a word of warning? Now don’t give us that prophecy stuff — Zionists only uses the Bible for window dressing, the rest of the time they spit on it.

Any Jews reading this, it’s over. Everything your tribal leadership has done to weaken other societies is plaguing you, too, in US, Europe, so-called Israel and everywhere else. What goes around comes around. In ameriKa you don’t even want to marry each other anymore. How “discriminatory”, or even “anti-semitic”!

This is a fascinating book; I read it yesterday. I was not aware of the plummeting birth rates for Muslims because no one else has pointed it out, but it’s consistent with a lot of other information I’m aware of. According to Lindsey Williams, who claims to know some of the world’s richest oil men, the Arab countries in the Middle East are about to have the rug pulled out from under them economically. The dictatorships there are toppling one by one and will be replaced by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. This gives the U.S. an “out” to stop buying their oil and start an energy boom here at home. That’s how we will get the economy going again and pay off our debt. Financially, the Middle East will be devastated because oil is their only export. Regime change will do to the Middle East what the potato famine did to Ireland. It also means they will no longer be able to fund schools and training camps all over the world that incubate and train terrorists. Add all of this to their plummeting birth rates and in 20 years they may be once again be just small tribes living simple lives in the desert.

I’ve had the book for two weeks. Fascinating. As chief bond trader for BoA Mr. Goldman has at his fingertips all the macro- and micro-economic data that backs up the book.

One contention:

The pro-democracy movement in the Arab world is genuine and Western-oriented. Nevertheless, the secularists have been at a disadvantage by their perceived association with thieving regimes and the superior organization of the Muslim Brotherhood. That may change with time – especially if the secularists decide to simultaneously arm themselves in the service of a strictly civilian democratic leadership. I imagine the change could take a generation to occur – the generation after their countries have gone bankrupt.

Islam, “The Religion of Peace,” has a peculiar approach to demonstrating the applicability of that description–unless firebombing a French newspaper, raping Norwegian women, and threatening and stabbing British MP’s are now condoned by the “Holy Prophet.”

Muslims have been revolting, in every sense of the word, for decades and not only during the Arab Spring. They are wreaking havoc throughout the Western world as well and the greatest irony in those upheavals is that the havoc is occurring in nations which welcomed them with open arms and open borders.

So much for misguided cultural diversity, so much for destructive multiculturalism, so much for fantasies of assimilation.

In France, Islamic terrorists showed their contempt for free speech by firebombing the offices of the leftist satirical publication Charlie Hebdo, (Charlie Weekly), in reaction to the weekly’s announced special edition to be titled, Sharia Hebdo “guest-edited” by none other than Muhammad, the “Holy Prophet” himself.

The editors had planned to satirize the first and probably last democratic Tunisian elections; Islamic sharia law was destined to become the dominant force in Tunisia and sharia has as much regard for democracy as it does for women. As for the proposed guest-editor, Muhammad had a great regard for war, mayhem, and his 8 year old child bride Aisha but “democracy” was a somewhat foreign concept to him.

It may have been an audacious idea for Charlie Hebdo and proved to be perilous as well when their office was hit with a Molotov cocktail and its website was hacked with a message criticizing irreverance toward “Islam’s almighty Prophet.”

Incidentally, one of America’s Leftist rags, Time magazine, chimed in on the fire bombing by attacking not the fire-bombers but Charlie Hebdo for “Islamophobic antics [which are] futile and childish.”

There may great sense of futility in Norway over its open invite to Muslims to come on over, become one of them, become a Norwegian, join their Nordic culture, and scrap their historic tendency for violence and the Qu’ran’s repugnance for and discrimination against the female gender.

The social experiment by ultra-liberal Norway isn’t working very well and the women of Oslo can attest to the fact that Muslim immigrants in Norway are far from childish. Brutal, violent, Muslim-ish, yes, childish, no.

A virtual rape-epidemic is in process in Oslo, already doubling 2010 incidents.

One member of the Norwegian Parliament, Oktay Dahl of the Conservative Party, risked a firebomb tossed by one of Norway’s new Muslim residents . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5902.)